´óÏó´«Ã½

Explore the fascinating science of animal behaviour. The Animal Behaviour degree programme focuses on animals in their natural habitats, including ecological, conservation and welfare contexts.

Course overview

Develop vital employer-desired skills while studying the ever-interesting field of animal behaviour. With an emphasis on free-living, wild animals you will follow a scientifically driven programme of work that develops your fundamental skills and knowledge and then uses them in cutting-edge applied contexts such as conservation and welfare sciences.

Why study this course with us?

A key strength of the Animal Behaviour degree is that it is firmly rooted in the biological sciences and adopts a rigorous scientific approach to the study of the behaviour of animals. As well as exploring the behaviour of charismatic animals, we embrace a wide taxonomic range of species and have a good focus on some of the groups less emphasised elsewhere, such as amphibians and invertebrates.

These groups have really interesting behaviour in their own right (cockroaches have personalities for example... and frogs can experience stress...) but are also a crucial part of temperate and tropical ecosystems – understanding their behaviour is vital for wider habitat conservation. Whilst the emphasis is mainly on wild animals you can study behaviour in more managed environments: e.g. determining best husbandry and conservation breeding for endangered animals in zoos; best practice pet welfare; farm animal management. Our staff have real enthusiasm for their subject and bring great expertise from their research fields.

In the 2020 NSS, 92% of students agreed that this course provided them with opportunities to bring subject information from different topics, to access and use learning resources, and to provide feedback.

Teaching methods

There is a lively mix of tutor-led lectures, seminars, practicals and fieldwork (with overseas opportunities). Problem-solving group work and other student-led activities inspire independence and leadership skills.

Assessment

Assessment is via exams – MCQs/essays (roughly 50%) – and innovative coursework, including news items, tweets, blogs and mind maps alongside more traditional critiques, scientific reports and essays.